Soft Protein Diet

Hey Ellen Thank you for the recommendations! The ground turkey and pinto beans sounds like something I'd like! You're right, it's amazing how many meals I can squeeze out of food these days! A little rough sometimes though...as not everything keeps very long. I've been freezing things in portion sizes. It will be extremely nice to get some cooked veggies back and non-citrus fruit. I'm counting down the days! Watermelon just in time for summer, yeah! What kind of protein smoothie do you make? I'm still trying to figure out which one I can stand on a regular basis lol

I purchased a huge container of "Designer Whey" Chocolate protein drink mix at Vitamin Shoppe. I take some crushed ice in the bottom of a cup, add the scoop or two of powdered drink mix and then 6-8 ounces of soy milk (sometimes I have the chocolate flavoured soy...) and use my hand mixer for about a minute to blend it all up. The more ice the more of a shake it becomes. It generally takes me a good 45 minutes to an hour to consume the drink but it is really soothing and actually starting to taste really good! I thought of another recipe that I can eat that I actually enjoy right now. I put green beans in with the pinto beans and simmer them together. A little bit of onion and some salt and pepper and it reminds me of growing up poor in the projects...but it tastes so yummy to my tummy (couldn't think of anything to rhyme with pouch!). I also know that it is not recommended but on days when I just can't seem to want to eat anything I do soup. I generally will eat the broth and chicken out of a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Also the chicken tortilla soup made by Cambells has a great flavour but you have to strain through all the "goodies" that you can't have to get to the broth and chicken. I have 3 little granddaughters that live with me so when I eat soup....they eat soup minus the broth and chicken. My littlest one loves the noodles from the soup so we have a happy medium. I am going to the store to get some turkey breast so I can make turkey jerky. Just found a great recipe for that and I figure it will help me at work when I know I have to eat but just don't want to. I am never hungry. I never get the shakes or a headache from not eating. I have head hunger but a bite of something that I used to like never tastes right so I can disregard any head hunger by the knowledge that it is going to taste like crap anyway! I have the worst taste in my mouth 99% of the time. I am hoping this goes away. Sorry to be so long winded about all this. Before surgery I never realized how little I thought about what I put in my mouth. Now that I never want to eat I think about what I should be putting in my mouth all the time!

My husband's surgery was on February 5th so he's about a month ahead of you. We finally discovered something that we all love and it's really easy to make...egg drop soup, just like you get at a Chinese food restaurant. All you have to do is heat a can of chicken broth, season it with a little salt, a finely-chopped green onion then add an egg or two. If you like it thicker than broth, you can thicken it with a LITTLE corn starch. Add the eggs after it's thick. Gently beat the eggs and pour them into the broth very slowly while stiring the broth (also slowly). If you like larger pieces of eggs, stir extremely slow so that the eggs don't get broken before they're done cooking. If you like smaller strings, stir more rapidly but still not really fast. Practice on one batch and you'll be an expert. None of these ingredients gave my hunny any trouble but eat slowly until you know for sure. If you're worried about the onion, use a little onion powder instead. Another thing I did was take several cans of different kinds of beans, mix them together with some broth flavored with "ham base." You can buy it at Smart & Final. One of my favorite combos was navy beans, kidney beans and green beans. Good luck, it really does get better! Dj